Flash: The tipping point in systems

The explosion of structured and unstructured data challenges businesses across every industry. Innovations driven by cloud, analytics, mobile, and social hinder organizations' existing storage capacity for efficiently and cost-effectively managing all of this data.

Storage can be something of a “black box,” a monolithic entity that is at once mysterious and scary. That’s why we created “The Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud to Ask” webcast series. So far, we’ve explored various and sundry aspects of storage, focusing on “the naming of the parts.” Our goal has been to break down some of the components of storage and explain how they fit into the greater whole.

This time, however, we’re going to open up Pandora’s Box and peer inside the world of storage management, uncovering some of the key technologies that are used to manage devices, storage traffic, and storage architectures. In particular, we’ll be discussing:

•SNMP – The granddaddy of management protocols
•SMI-S – The bread-and-butter of vendor-neutral storage management
•SNIA Swordfish – The new storage management solution gaining widespread momentum
•Software-Defined Storage – the catch-all term for storage that includes architectures and management

There’s so much to say on each of these subjects we could do a full webcast on any one of them, but for a quick overview of many of the technologies that affect storage in one place, we think you will find your time has been well spent.

Join us on September 28th, 2017, for our continuation of the “Too Proud To Ask” series with Cyan, the Storage Management Pod.

As FC-NVMe (NVMe over Fibre Channel) is preparing for it’s official launch, there have been numerous questions about how the technology works, how it gets implemented, and what makes it special when compared to traditional, SCSI-based Fibre Channel.

When we did our first webinar on FC-NVMe [link], we got lots of questions about more details, more technical aspects, and more thorough explanations. So here we are!

This presentation is going to be a more thorough analysis of the bits and bytes of FC-NVMe, where you will learn:

•What are the key differences and similarities between NVMe and SCSI Fibre Channel structures
•What are the main architectural differences between NVMe and SCSI deployments
•Impact on Queue Depth
•How to cross-connect legacy and future flash arrays with FC-NVMe

Please join us on August 29th for this advanced, deep dive on FC-NVMe.

The ICT sector is moving us inexorably towards a software-enabled digital world, but many still fail to understand the power of this trend, how it is going to impact/benefit the ICT Industries and infrastructures delivering them.

Among topics discussed will be:
- Present and future impact of Software Defined technologies on IT (challenges and opportunities)
- How Software-Defined is enabling the digital transformation
- Best practices and recommendation on adopting software-defined technologies with the future in mind.

This Webinar is aimed at IT professionals and CIOs/CDOs/CTOs seeking to understand more about how software-defined impacts the present and future of enterprises.

Cohesity delivers a web-scale platform that consolidates all secondary storage and data services onto one unified, efficient solution. Cohesity simplifies data protection, consolidates file and object services, provides instant access to test/dev copies, and performs in-place searches and analytics. All on a software-defined platform that spans from the edge to the cloud.

Enterprises are evolving their vSphere environments from standard DR configurations to high availability (HA) architectures. VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster is a key capability in this evolution. Parallel to this, companies are embracing hybrid cloud and AWS in particular. In many cases enterprises treat AWS as a passive DR site. But what if you could evolve AWS to be part of an HA stretch cluster? That’s where software-defined storage (SDS) comes in.

SDS solutions provide the flexibility to run on commodity servers as well as cloud computing instances. Couple that with advanced multi-site replication, per-VM storage policies, deduplication, snapshotting, cloning, and VMware’s recent announcement with AWS, and SDS is now the ideal enabler for automated failover in a hybrid cloud stretched cluster.

Bio:
Chris is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) and senior solutions architect at Hedvig. Chris has in-depth experience in cloud, virtualization, storage, data center, and software-defined technologies gained from his work across numerous practices including web development, systems administration, and consulting. His advisory expertise helps customers better adopt and adapt to the technologies that best fit for their business requirements.

In this, the seventh entry in the “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask,” popular webcast series we look into the mysticism and magic of what happens when you send your data off into the wilderness. Once you click “save,” for example, where does it actually go?

When we start to dig deeper beyond the application layer, we often don’t understand what happens behind the scenes. It’s important to understand multiple aspects of the type of storage our data goes to along with their associated benefits and drawbacks as well as some of the protocols used to transport it.

Many people get nervous when they see that many acronyms, but all too often they come up in conversation, and you’re expected to know all of them? Worse, you’re expected to know the differences between them, and the consequences of using them? Even worse, you’re expected to know what happens when you use the wrong one?

We’re here to help.

It’s an ambitious project, but these terms and concepts are at the heart of where compute, networking and storage intersect. Having a good grasp of these concepts ties in with which type of storage networking to use, and how data is actually stored behind the scenes.

Please join us on August 1st for another edition of the “Too Proud To Ask” series, as we work towards making you feel more comfortable in the strange, mystical world of storage.

After the webcast, check out the Q&A blog http://sniaesfblog.org/?p=643

Containers can make it easier for developers to know that their software will run, no matter where it is deployed. This webcast, presented by the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative and the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative, will discuss how persistent memory is a revolutionary technology, which will boost the performance of next-generation packaging of applications and libraries into containers.

You’ll learn:
•What SNIA is doing to advance persistent memory
•What the ecosystem enablement efforts are around persistent memory solutions
•How NVDIMMs are paving the way for plug-n-play adoption into containers environments

Join SNIA experts, Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM SIG Co-chair, Chad Thibodeau, SNIA Cloud Storage member and Alex McDonald Co-chair of SNIA Solid State Storage and SNIA Cloud Storage Initiatives to find out what customers, storage developers, and the industry want to see to fully unlock the potential of persistent memory in a container environment.

Standards organizations like SNIA are in the vanguard of describing cloud concepts and usage, and (as you might expect) are leading on how and where security fits in this new world of dispersed and publicly stored and managed data. In this webcast, SNIA experts Eric Hibbard and Mark Carlson will take us through a discussion of existing cloud and emerging technologies (such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Analytics & Big Data, and so on) – and explain how we’re describing and solving the significant security concerns these technologies are creating. They will discuss emerging ISO/IEC standards, SLA frameworks and security and privacy certifications. This webcast will be of interest to managers and acquirers of cloud storage (whether internal or external), and developers of private and public cloud solutions who want to know more about security and privacy in the cloud.

In this, the sixth entry in the “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask,” popular webcast series we look into some of the nitties and the gritties of storage details that are often assumed.

When looking at data from the lens of an application, host, or operating system, it’s easy to forget that there are several layers of abstraction underneath before the actual placement of data occurs. In this webcast we are going to scratch beyond the first layer to understand some of the basic taxonomies of these layers.

It’s an ambitious project, but these terms and concepts are at the heart of where compute, networking and storage intersect. Having a good grasp of these concepts ties in with which type of storage networking to use, and how data is actually stored behind the scenes.

Join us on July 6th for this session. We look forward to seeing you there!

Cohesity is one of the rising stars in the world of data management. They have flipped the data protection market on its ear. In this CEO Series webcast, Arun Taneja, Founder and Consulting Analyst of Taneja Group will interview Mohit Aron, CEO of Cohesity, to understand the concept of Hyperconverged Secondary Storage and why it matters to the industry. We will explore the advantages it provides for your data protection, test/dev, and data analytics workloads and how Cohesity is different from other solutions on the market. It is time to say goodbye to the old, staid methods of protecting data. The traditional methods simply don’t make sense in the new world of Big Data, Multi and Hybrid cloud and web-scale applications. Join the webcast for a whirlwind tour of new ideas and methods in this space.

As businesses become increasingly dependent on SAP HANA for real-time decisions, the demands of the infrastructure continue to grow. A more efficient and modern infrastructure is required to meet the demands of these global always on real-time environments. Storage plays a crucial role in maintaining high service levels and guarding against costly downtime. The right storage for SAP HANA is all flash.
Join us as Jeff Kato, Senior Analyst and Consultant from Taneja Group describes why all flash is the best choice for HANA. Jeff will also provide a comparison of the leading all flash solutions in the market and illustrate where 3PAR All Flash leads the competition in critical storage efficiency metrics. Stephen Carpenter, Master Technologist from HPE’s Storage Business Unit, will share some key insights that distinguishes 3PAR StoreServ architecturally for HANA workloads. Additionally, Hasmig Samurkashian, Product Manager from the HPE Storage team will share actual customer deployment examples.

Fibre Channel (FC) is the storage networking protocol for enterprise data centers, with over 11 million ports deployed. Fibre Channel is purpose-built –and engineered to meet the demands for enterprise data centers that require rock solid reliability, high performance and scalability. It can even transport new storage protocols like NVMe natively.

Flexible and resilient, Fibre Channel frames can be encapsulated in both an IP packet (FCIP) as well as a Layer 2 frame (FCoE) and provide unparalleled performance for storage systems. Even so, many people don’t actually understand how it works. This live webcast will help you understand the basics so that you can make informed decisions yourself.

In this “Foundations” webcast, we’ll answer key questions, such as:
- What is Fibre Channel?
- What makes Fibre Channel so reliable?
- How is Fibre Channel different from other storage protocols?
- What are the best practices for designing Fibre Channel solutions?
- And more

If you’re not familiar with Fibre Channel and want to learn more, or if you are interested in learning about how Fibre Channel is purpose-built for storage and future proofed for next-gen NVMe storage arrays, join us at this live event. Our experts will be available to answer your specific questions on the spot.

These types of data have special characteristics that need to be catered to. Join this webinar with Cloud Technology Partners Joey Jablonski, VP of Big Data & Analytics and Ken Carroll, VP of IoT, as they discuss some important aspects of how such data can be ingested, modeled, stored and used in IoT solutions.

This exciting panel explores the kinds of storage that IoT solutions demand. We talk about what’s different about data storage for IoT compared to existing enterprise applications, what capabilities are required to support massive, distributed IoT networks, and how and why existing storage solutions may or may not be the best IoT application storage. Plan on getting into unique IoT data protection concerns, real-time data pipelines, machine learning, data accessibility, distributed processing, and of course, what’s actually practical for the IoT already emerging in today’s data center.

As part of the successful “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” series, we’ve discussed numerous topics about storage devices, protocols, and networks. As we examine some of these topics further, we begin to tease out some subtle nuances; subtle, yet important nevertheless.

In Part Sepia, we’re going to take a look at some of the terms and concepts that affect Storage Architectures as a whole. In particular, we’ll be looking at those aspects that can help or hinder storage systems inside the network:

Each of these topics has a profound impact on storage designs and performance, but they are often misunderstood. We’re going to help you become clear on all of these very important storage concepts so that you can grok storage just a little bit more.

After the webcast, check out the Q&A blog at http://sniaesfblog.org/?p=629

The growing popularity of object-based storage has resulted in the development of Ethernet-connected storage devices, herein referred to as IP-Based Drives and subsystems supporting object interfaces and in some cases the ability to run localized applications.
Typical scale-out storage nodes consist of relatively inexpensive enclosures with IP network connectivity, CPU, Memory and Direct Attached Storage (DAS). While inexpensive to deploy, these solutions become harder to manage over time.
To ease management of these drives, SNIA has approved the release of the IP-Based Drive Management Specification. In this webcast, you’ll hear from authors of the specification who’ll discuss:

• Major Components of the IP Based Drive Management Standard
• How the standard leverages the DMTF Redfish management standard to manage Kinetic and other IP-Based Drives
• Providing a standard management interface for drives that are part of JBOD or JBOF enclosures

New solid state storage technologies are forcing the industry to refine distinctions between networks and other types of system interconnects. The question on everyone’s mind is, when is it beneficial to use networks to access solid state storage, particularly persistent memory? The answer to this question involves application, interconnect, memory technology and scalability factors that can be analyzed in the context of a latency budget. In this talk we will explore latency budgets for various types of solid state storage access. These can be used to determine which combinations of interconnects, technologies and scales are compatible with Load/Store instruction access and which are better suited to IO completion techniques such as polling or blocking. In this webcast you’ll learn:

•Why latency is important in accessing solid state storage
•How to determine the appropriate use of networking in the context of a latency budget
•Do’s and don’ts for Load/Store access

Fibre Channel is the most well known dedicated storage networking protocol in use in data centers today, and is considered the gold standard for storage in terms of availability, reliability, and scalability. However, it does require some specific design and planning requirements. For that, storage administrators use the Fibre Channel Speedmap in order to plan.

In this webcast, you will learn how to use the Fibre Channel Speedmap, what the numbers mean, and why its useful:

- Why do storage administrators use the Speedmap?
- What’s the difference between throughput, bandwidth, baud rates, and speed?
- Why does this matter for Fibre Channel and not, say, Ethernet?

This live webcast will be useful for anyone who wants to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to “speeds and feeds,” and make sense of the numbers.

Server Message Block (SMB) is the core file-transfer protocol of Windows, MacOS and Samba, and has become widely deployed. It’s ubiquitous - a 30-year-old family of network code.

However, the latest iteration of SMB3 is almost unrecognizable when compared to versions only a few years old. Extensive reengineering has led to advanced capabilities that include multichannel, transparent failover, scale out, and encryption. SMB Direct makes use of RDMA networking, creates block transport system and provides reliable transport to zetabytes of unstructured data, worldwide.

SMB3 forms the basis of hyper-converged and scale-out systems for virtualization and SQL Server. It is available for a variety of hardware devices, from printers, network-attached storage appliances, to Storage Area Networks (SANs). It is often the most prevalent protocol on a network, with high-performance data transfers as well as efficient end-user access over wide-area connections.

In this SNIA-ESF Webcast, Microsoft’s Ned Pyle, program manager of the SMB protocol, will discuss the current state of SMB, including:

Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) along with Cluster or Cloud In Box (CIB) are popular trend topics that have gained both industry and customer adoption. As part of data infrastructures, CI, CIB and HCI enable simplified deployment of resources (servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software) across different environments. However, what do these approaches mean for a hyperconverged storage environment? What are the key concerns and considerations related specifically to storage? Most importantly, how do you know that you’re asking the right questions in order to get to the right answers?

Find out in this live SNIA-ESF webcast where expert Greg Schulz, founder and analyst of Server StorageIO, will move beyond the hype to discuss:

The Enterprise Storage channel has the most up-to-date, relevant content for storage and infrastructure professionals. As data centers evolve with big data, cloud computing and virtualization, organizations are going to need to know how to make their storage more efficient. Join this channel to find out how you can use the most current technology to satisfy your business and storage needs.